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earthquake

Last weekend we mentioned Tashirojima, Japan’s “Cat Island”. The island is populated by perhaps thousands of cats and 100 or so elderly human residents. The fear at first was that the island, right near the epicenter of the earthquake and tsunami, was lost. This week, we saw this article Discovery News reporting that the island survived!

Tashirojima, otherwise known as Japan’s “Cat Island” due to its numerous feline inhabitants, is intact after the recent devastating 9-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami, according to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. However, like so many others devastated by the disaster, both the human and feline residents of the island need help.

Just to give everyone an update on Tashirojima, the cat island. The people and cats are safe but short of food. A volunteer looked into transporting food by boat, but there is too much debris in the water. A helicopter is the only way. The army will probably get a helicopter ready soon so we are looking into the possibility of asking them to take cat food too.

Additional information via this blog post, along with some beautiful photos.

It is a rare bit of good news in a disaster that seems to be getting worse every day, especially now with the nuclear disaster. It could be another round of danger for this island and extraordinary number of people in coming days.

I didn’t think it would be possible to make this a “Cat and Synthesizer” post, but I did read via matrixsynth, that is matching donations to SXSW’s Japan relief fund with subscriptions. (Puremagnetik is a subscription service for sound/instrument packs for use with Ableton Live! and other software environments.)

As mentioned earlier this week, he fell very ill and passed away on Friday. He (through his mom) first visited us in late 2007, and they have been regulars on our site ever since, as likely to comment on experimental music shows and photography as Luna’s feline antics. And in turn, we enjoyed getting to know them better through their site. Our thoughts go out to Mom Nancy and the rest of the family today.

We have been closely following the tragic events in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami. Images such as these are heartbreaking, and our thoughts are with the people of Japan right now. While every year brings multiple huge disasters, when it happens somewhere you have visited or affects people you know, it hits harder.

Our friends at Cats of Wildcat Woods have compiled a list of relief organizations. The Red Cross is always a good place to start, and now you can donate via text messages.

There is no information currently on Tashirojima, or “Cat Island”, which is off the eastern coast of Japan in Miyagi Prefecture, near epicenter of the earthquake and tsunami, but the fear is that the island was lost.

It seems like she has been resting a lot lately. It’s been cold, it’s been dark, she is probably channeling some of my own fatigue, and of course she is a cat.

We were briefly jolted yesterday by a 4.1-magnitude earthquake in the Bay Area. It was relatively long, but still quite mild. Luna was on alert though, her ears pointing straight up and her eyes growing exceptionally wide. She did not run for cover, though.

Weekend Cat Blogging #292 is hosted by Kashim, Othello and Salome at PaulChens FoodBlog ?!. I quite like the monochrome graphic they created for today:

It's just one of those things when you live in California. You know an earthquake when you feel it, and we at CatSynth definitely felt it tonight. From Associated Press:

The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 and struck shortly after 8 p.m., about 9 miles northeast of San Jose, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake was in full force here at CatSynth HQ, with the nasty side-to-side motion and our many glass items shaking quite intensely. But we're fine, no damage, and it sounds like there was little or no damage elsewhere. Luna was a little shaken, though.